Organisers of the GOtv Boxing Night have set their sights on hosting a world title fight after successfully staging 15 editions of one of Africa’s foremost boxing events.
Meanwhile, the GOtv Boxing Night 16 tagged the Independence Edition, will hold on October 14 at the Indoor Sports Hall of the Teslim Balogun Stadium, Lagos. This was announced at a press conference addressed by the organisers in Lagos on Tuesday.
“The whole idea is to bring a world championship fight to Nigeria in the nearest future; we are using our NextGen search project to discover talents and project them on the national stage. GOtv will continue to support and grow boxing in Nigeria. We’ll always make sure our boxers are happy and well looked after,” Chidozie Bede-Nwokoye, Marketing Manager, GOtv, said.
Also, Jenkins Alumona, CEO, Flykite Productions, said, “We have clear instructions to host GOtv Boxing Night 20 as a world title fight. We don’t want a title fight with a boxer not domiciled here. We know what happened to boxing before GOtv came in; that was when boxers hardly had fights until they became too old to box.”
Speaking further, Alumona hinted that the GOtv Boxing Night 16 would have 18 boxers and nine bouts, the highest fights in a night, in the history of boxing in the country.
“This edition of the competition will start the next chapter of boxing development in Nigeria,” Alumona added.
The biggest of the fights is the West African Boxing Union lightweight title clash between Nigeria’s Rilwan ‘Real One’ Oladosu and Ghana’s Benjamin Lamptey. There’s also the international lighweight challenge bout between African Boxing Union champion, Nigeria’s Oto Joseph and Ghana’s Anama Dotse. Also on the line-up is the national light heavyweight title bout between Kabiru Towolawi and Adewale Masebinu. Another marquee match-up will see Waidi Usman in a featherweight clash with Chibuzor Obi.
The bout card has discoveries from the last two editions of GOtv Boxing NextGen Search. Prominent among them is Opeyemi Elijah, best boxer at GOtv Boxing NextGen 4, who takes on Sheriff Ogunbanjo in a super bantamweight duel. The lightweight division has Taiwo Agbaje taking on Tope Musa.
Other fights involving GOtv Boxing NextGen graduates will see Azeez Tijani square up with Waheed Shogbanmu, while Isaac Chukwudi confronts Adeyemi Adekanla in the welterweight category. The super flyweight division has Aminu Akintayo up against Mutiu Lawal. The best boxer on the night will go home with a cash prize of N1.5m and the Mojisola Ogunsanya Memorial Trophy.
–punchng
